I dont really know where to put this, but just wondered if anyone else was excited by the new direction Microsoft have taken? I gotta say, I really like it. The new design will take some getting used to, but having used metro on my xbox, I am pretty impressed. The look is clean, well laid out and information rich.

Microsoft have also done well on the windows phone side to make sure the look is clean and consistent across devices which bodes well for ease of use and also for user experience as all devices have the same software and capabilities. In theory you should choose the one you like best and it will work well. As a solid android user, that is really tempting as I know the pain of waiting for updates that may never come and having to root or install custom roms to get good battery life and optimisations. By making manufacturers release phones to a "better than" spec, it stops the platform feeling slow or being compromised by slow and cheap devices. It also future proofs the devices to an extent.

Windows 8 is also looking good and hopefully people will get into the new look once they experience it.

Overall, Microsoft seems to be building a great software ecosystem that works well over multiple devices and provides a real alternative to Apple finally. It looks to have been built so that it works everywhere you are from the main computer to the lounge to your smartphone.

Im also finally pleased to see Nokia doing tv adverts as if you just watched tv, you would think the iphone is the only smartphone available. This is what I hoped to see from the Nokia/Microsoft partnership and android/ other manufacturers don't seem to advertise here really. If they keep this up, my next phone will be a windows one to match my windows 8 desktop and netbook!

I think this is the worst decision Microsoft have made in years, Windows 7 was approaching the pinnacle of perfection, Windows 8 is shaping up to make ME and Vista look like quality usable products..

As a "power user" and IT pro, what I want from a mobile platform and what I want from a desktop OS are vastly seperate things, and I cannot see any way they can achieve it without compromising my desktop experience. Metro is a giant compromise, throwing out desktop usability to cater to touchscreen mobile devices in an attempt to take market share from Apple in the mobile market. I want to see Apple knocked off their perch, but not at the expense of destroying Windows.

As a current non user of windows phone, I suppose I can't really comment on the updates, but compared to Android, they seem amazing. Every phone gets all software updates from my understanding. I guess it goes Android<Windows Phone<Apple. Some Androids are good and get regular updates such as the galaxy line from Samsung, but most are appalling with phones still running froyo being sold now even though we are 2 generations passed that.

On the desktop side, I like the integration of metro apps and the new look. It looks clean and shiny. If microsoft can do a good job of syncing across platforms, it is going to be really uniform and solid user experience even if it is orientated towards consumers over hard core business use.

Although on that front, much like I would not trade office 2007 or 10 for 2003 just because of the ribbon or much like I would not give up the initially hated superbar for the old taskbar, I expect people will eventually get used to the new direction and come to use it fully.

Why should I have apps that are allowed to look and feel however they want and put up random notifications into any corner of the screen at will, why not a twitter feed updated cleanly on my desktop or a workplace IM system on its own tile which is a part of the workplace desktop usage and "built in" to every computer running windows 8. How about calendars backed up by exchange in a tile on the desktop with reminders given from there rather than having to rely on someone having outlook open. How about a global reminder tile for important tasks. A tile where you can see emails at a glance with just one keypress could be useful, or how about an at a glance tile for order tracking or schedule completion. How about a tile for server monitoring? Businesses might find all kinds of new uses for metro apps if Microsoft can keep up the work already started on making deployment easier.

Its just my opinion though, just remains to be seen what happens now. If all else fails, win 7 will be supported for a long time yet!

I've been using Win8 CP at work for the last 24 hours and, to be honest, the Metro UI hardly even shows up and it surely doenst get 'in the way'. I have all my regular apps pinned to the taskbar, I now even have two task bars (one per monitor in dual-screen config) so I can fit all my apps there. All my favourite keyboard shortcuts still work and in general use it isn't really that much different to Win7. Its running Office 2010, Lync, Visual Studio, and some old legacy apps from windows 2000(!).

Oh, it also took me less that 7 minutes from switched off, to being fully installed, including a bunch of cmd line operations to create, mound and install to a virtual disk, connecting to wireless and joining a domain.

lyonrouge: Still can't get the metro IE to render our SharePoint site, if I drop to desktop I can access it. I added out domain to the desktop IE configuration to see if that made any difference, but no luck.

That did work, I had to sign off and sign back on for it to pick up the change. does any know how to close a program in Win8?

Thanks. I think it would be OK for business users, with a good focus on email and calendar functions and assuming it will have a new version of Office that integerates with the OS I think it will be fine, however, I think it will meet with resistance against IT professionals and Power Users.

I think windows 8 in it's current form is just a mess and a hotchpotch of two different interfaces. Neither works well. I mean not having a start menu on a desktop where you can access everything is just plain stupid, and the fact that they do have a text menu hidden in the start menu location which has some of the start menu functions just proves that something is needed. Also metro apps don't work on netbooks, due to most netbook having a vertical res of 600 pixels. Metro is supposed to be a 'mobile' OS, and netbooks are mobile computers, and a netbook res is more than enough for viewing single screen apps. People who buy a desktop will just buy windows 7, as there is no advantage with windows 8, only disadvantages for desktop use. A desktop is a producing device, while metro is a consumption interface. I am sure it would work well on a kiosk computer in a motel. I think they would have been better to do what apple have done, and develop two different OS's. I do like the metro tile idea on a phone like device though, better than apples icons, which only serve one purpose, and that is to launch the app.

This is all speculative, but I believe this is a pre-emptive strike for MS. It would make sense for the OSX and iOS to merge (OSX deprecate) into a single platform. The Mac strength is it's applications. Knowing this, MS would want to reduce the maintenance costs and have a unified OS to roll-out and gather more apps as Dev can write for mobile and desktop in a single hit.

Unified OS may loose Power Users but gain operation expenditure savings. The Desktop fanatics will still have Linux to play with.

Worst direction I have ever seen Microsoft go in. I cannot believe they would put metro into a business operating system, let alone in to a SERVER OS. It's a bad joke I am sorry to say. The fact this direction started on mobile devices really says something to me..

I have to logoff quite often as I get stuck in a place I can't escape (recent example is a calendar entry I opened to look at and it want to resend the invite or delete the appoint, but there was no way just to close it.

I'm trying to give this a fair shake of the stick before I make a call one way or the other.